


In Which Shadow Is Brought Back

by Pokegeek151



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Genre: Comfort, Deception, Freeform, I don't actually know what that means but it seems right, I...didn't think about how to tag this, M/M, Resurrection, Shadow wakes up, revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-05-28 03:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15039839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokegeek151/pseuds/Pokegeek151
Summary: After who knows how long, Shadow is finally brought back from oblivion. Recovery is slow.





	1. Sensations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the inside looking out

The only sensation Shadow was aware of was that of something warm and soft where he suspected his forehead ought to be. It felt like eternity had passed, rewound itself, and played again since he last had anything close to a physical body and he spent however long marveling at the overwhelming pleasantness of the feeling. His body had always been cold, no blood or substance to provide warmth. Shadows are cast where the light cannot reach, after all.

 

Time didn’t seem to pass. His thoughts were purple.

 

He let out a quiet whine, the barest noise from a throat he’d long forgotten when the warmth went away. It had been a familiar touch and he craved it like a drug but now it was gone, the last vestiges of heat slowly dissipating from his nerves. A moment later, the warmth was back and a breath of air passed through him as he sighed contentedly.

 

Slowly, he realized he was able to identify the feeling that filled his essence with familiar comfort. A gentle hand was on his forehead, the fingers close together to keep out of the eyes he wasn’t ready to open.

 

There was a sound nearby, muffled and fuzzy and dampened to the point where he could not tell what it was. His ears felt submerged in water but slowly, they seemed to drain and he could almost make out what the sound was. The warmth spread to his chest and he decided that the sound was a voice speaking to him and saying things that made him happy.

 

_…dow…adow…Shadow?_

 

_Are you awake? Can you hear me?_

 

_You’re going to be okay, Shadow._

 

_I’m here._

 

He found that he had a head that he could turn fractionally towards the voice, though it took all of his effort and oblivion crept up behind him and offered to drag him back to where he had been, incorporeal and numb. He was tempted but the soft press on his forehead encouraged him to stay where he had a body that hurt and as swirls of violet filled his skull, he couldn’t say no to that gentle pressure.

 

He wanted to tell the voice that he was staying, wanted to tell the hand to summon its brother because he was so cold, so cold, always, but his lips felt glued together and his tongue was gummy and stale.

 

The hand went away and he wanted to cry out but he lacked the strength to do so. A few moments later, though, he felt himself lifted by the shoulders into a slight incline. His body screamed in protest but he welcomed the pain. It was an improvement of the triple eternity of nothing.

 

Something cool filled the cracks in his lips and if his body was capable of moving as he wished, he would have convulsed at the sharpness of it. Something smooth and hard slowly, carefully, forced his fused lips apart and the stinging cold settled into a soothing chill instead. After a few minutes, trapped, musty air escaped his mouth and water gently cascaded in when his lips finally parted to the glass. He coughed and sputtered as it went down his dusty, sandpaper throat and the quiet voice nearby sucked in a sharp, worried breath.

 

The glass was removed and the hand that had settled in the space between his shoulder blades began to rub circles and he felt his body relax. The water returned, much more slowly this time, and he was grateful for this second connection to the physical world.

 

_Is that better?_

 

Shadow wanted to say yes. He wanted to thank the voice for the water and the warmth on his back. He wanted to thank the goddesses or the Dark World or whatever force brought him here from the all-consuming numbness.

 

“…io…” was instead the only sound he could make. His tongue and his lips weren’t precise enough to form the complex sound of a ‘V’ but he hoped the voice would understand.

 

There was silence for a moment. Had the voice not heard him? It would not surprise him. But Shadow suddenly realized he desperately needed that purple tunic beside him so he opened his mouth to beg.

 

_I’m here, Shadow._

 

That was why the voice was familiar. His love had been beside him the whole time. Shadow wanted, Shadow needed to see those blue eyes that made crystals jealous, that threatened to turn the sky green with envy. He tried to force his own eyelids open but they were stuck. He struggled vainly to see, his chest tightening the more he was denied Vio’s eyes.

 

A cool, damp cloth touched his eyes and he stopped moving, allowing the voice, his Vio, to work. The crust was gently removed from his eyes and when the cloth had moved away, he slowly opened them.

 

He hissed painfully and writhed weakly, his eyes forced shut immediately. The warm hands on his arms managed to ease him back down. “Too…brigh’…” he managed to choke out. The light had been blinding and his retinas felt like they’d been seared to a charry disc.

 

The dull sound of crackling torches, that Shadow had only just become aware of, lowered below his current threshold of hearing. When he hesitantly opened his eyes again, the room was still bright but at least it was bearable. His vision was blurry but he could just make out the shape of the Hylian beside him. Vio leaned out of his sight for a moment but the frightened sound building in Shadow’s throat died when he reappeared a second later with the glass of water. As he helped Shadow drink some more, the hero spoke quietly. “I had to leave a few torches lit. A shadow can’t be cast without a little light, after all,” he said with a quiet chuckle.

 

“An’ light is…blinding wi’out a bit of…sha’ow,” he muttered back, a tiny, drunken grin on his face. “You ‘membered…”

 

“Remembered what?” the Hylian asked softly but Shadow had exhausted the little energy he had. With Vio’s warmth around him, he let his eyes slip closed and he allowed unconsciousness to overtake him, knowing that when he awoke next, his love would be there.


	2. Ministrations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the outside looking in

It took over a week for Shadow to show any signs of consciousness and Link had grown more and more concerned with each passing day. Zelda had to force him to rest, reminding him that he was just one person again and that he could, and should, ask for help sometimes.

 

Link took that to mean asking the other knights to cover his duties a bit because he didn’t trust anyone else to watch after his shadow properly (except perhaps Zelda but he wouldn’t ask her to do this).

 

He had just checked Shadow’s temperature (cool, but somehow unconcerning) when he heard it--a small noise, like the whine of a mosquito. It took him a few moments to realize it had come from Shadow. The young man’s features had shifted slightly; they were fractionally more pinched, like he wanted to complain but couldn’t move his face. Link placed his hand back on Shadow’s pallid skin and his expression settled. Did he like the warmth? Link had never known Shadow to complain about being cold but then again, only part of him ever got to know his shadow well.

 

“Shadow? Shadow?” Link whispered. Was this a sign that he was finally waking up? “Shadow? Are you awake? Can you hear me?” He lightly rubbed part of Shadow’s forehead with his index finger. “You’re going to be okay, Shadow. I’m here.” Zelda had told him that people can hear their names when they are asleep so maybe, just maybe, if he said his name enough times, Shadow might wake up properly.

 

Beneath his steady hand, Shadow’s head turned fractionally. Link could practically see the nausea spill over Shadow’s features from what must have been a massive effort and he watched as the boy’s lips quivered slightly, unable to open. Link stepped away from the bed and poured some cool water into a glass. Zelda must have replenished the pitcher when he had left the room. With the delicacy he would use when handling a newly born kitten, Link lifted Shadow’s shoulders up and slid onto the bed so that he could rest his head on his lap. Link spent the next few minutes carefully working Shadow’s lips apart with the edge of the glass, ignoring the drops that spilled over the corners where his ethereal skin met the hard physicality of the glass. 

 

When his mouth finally opened, the water flooded in and Shadow choked. Link sucked in a breath and hurriedly put the glass on the bedside table. He could barely see the table in the low torchlight of the room and the glass almost toppled over as he placed it on the hard surface but that was the least of the young man’s concerns. He rubbed soothing circles on Shadow’s back as the coughing fit died down. His second attempt at giving the boy water was more successful. Barely a trickle passed over his lips but it seemed to help.

 

“Is that better?” Link muttered, not really expecting a response. He had no idea how aware of his surroundings Shadow might be.

 

To his surprise, the boy in his lap croaked out a meek sound, an incomplete word that twisted a knife into the green-clad hero’s heart.

 

“…io…”

 

Shadow’s voice was hoarse, weak from disuse, yet Link could still hear the desperation, the longing, the primal need laced within the simple syllables. 

 

He was calling for the one person in this world who can truly make him happy and Link didn’t know how to tell him that person was gone. The four Links had fused together in order to put the seal back in place.

 

Shadow seemed to grow more stressed as he waited on a response from his caretaker and part of Link, a purple swirl in his heart, ached at seeing him hurt like this. So Link said the first thing that came to mind to help soothe both his own pain and the worries of his shadow.

 

“I’m here, Shadow.” Once Shadow began to recover, Link would tell him the truth. But for now, he would play along so that the newly-resurrected Shadow could relax. It felt like a lie and that stabbing, twisting, wrenching knife in his heart jerked again at the deception but he told himself it was for the best for now.

 

Indeed, the words seemed to have an immediate effect on Shadow. Link watched, almost with awe, how the ‘knowledge’ of Vio’s presence gave him the energy to attempt to open his sealed eyes. Link hurriedly dipped a cloth into the glass of water and used it to gently wipe away the crust.

 

Shadow’s ruby eyes were only open for a moment before he began to writhe in pain. Link placed his hands on the boy’s arms and helped him settle back onto his lap.

 

“Too…brigh’…” he whispered painfully.

 

There were a couple torches on the walls of the room and the shadows were deep and long in the dim light. But Shadow Link was a creature of darkness, even if his morals were on the side of the light. Link dimmed the fires using a spell he’d learned from Zelda, though he kept the flames at barely-burning embers so that he could see what he was doing.

 

When Shadow opened his eyes again, Link smiled warmly. His vision was unfocused and his pupils were dilated, but at least he was awake. Link leaned over to the bedside table and grabbed the glass once again, carefully helping Shadow drink more.

 

“I had to leave a few torches lit. A shadow can’t be cast without a little light, after all,” he mumbled in Shadow’s ear. The expression had come to him suddenly but it made sense.

 

Shadow smiled at him in return. “An’ light is…blinding wi’out a bit of…sha’ow. You ‘membered.” His words were slurred and dry but there was unmistakable joy in them.

 

“Remembered what?” Link asked. His lack of knowledge of whatever reference he’d apparently made only served to remind him of his quarter-truth. As Shadow drifted back to unconsciousness, Link decided it must have been something he and Vio had come up with while Vio was pretending to be evil. Or perhaps it was their way of justifying whatever relationship might have developed between the Hero of Light and his dark shadow.

 

Link carded his fingers through Shadow’s hair a bit, letting the thoughts of romance and betrayal slip away into the purple strands. Shadow would inevitably find out the truth but in this moment, in the near total darkness of the room with a cool head in Link’s lap, the hero was content to let the situation be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In canon, the four fuse back into one. As much fun as having the rainbow running around, I wanted to keep that little fact in mind. Hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> My first Vidow piece. Expect the opposite POV soon!


End file.
